Digital Marketing Blog

Second Life users pass million mark

Linden Lab’s web-based virtual world Second Life has signed up its millionth customer.

The game's homepage said it had just under 1.03m residents at the time of writing, having had 0.96m yesterday, according to CNET.

by Richard Maven 19 October 2006 10:25am 0 comments

Websnapr vs WebThumb - thumbnail generators for webpages

Websnapr has been getting a lot of good coverage over the past couple of days on delicious and Digg, but it isn’t the only thumbnail generator in town.

by Chris Lake 18 October 2006 17:43pm 0 comments

FeedRaider – creating personalised pages with RSS

Steve Rubel pointed out the joys of FeedRaider a couple of days ago, and it is well worth taking a look.

Ideal for those new to RSS, Feedraider allows you to create bespoke pages by adding RSS feeds and works a little like popurls, only you define where the content comes from.

If you want to set up a web-based RSS aggregator then it really couldn’t be simpler. It is also perfect for sharing news sources with friends and colleagues.

by Chris Lake 18 October 2006 16:59pm 3 comments

Apple to release two iPod phones?

According to Apple Insider, two new iPod–based mobile phones could be released within the next few months, initially in small quantities to test the waters.

Apple appeared to confirm such rumours last month, when they registered the trademark for the name ‘iPhone’ in the US, after months of speculation about the product.

by Graham Charlton 18 October 2006 14:53pm 0 comments

Russian retailer's defiance riles British music biz

The British music industry has reacted angrily to a show of defiance from a Russian online music retailer that has been accused of selling singles and albums illegally.

by Robert Andrews 18 October 2006 14:49pm 2 comments

Top UK blogs, ranked by unique users and impressions

Last Friday I wrote a post called “Are inbound links the best way to measure a blog’s influence?”, where I challenged a study published by Edelman and Technorati.

That study ranked the top blogs in the UK by influence, but rankings were determined solely by links from other blogs. My big issue is that the quantity of links doesn’t tell you very much, not when many blogs listed in Technorati are spam blogs.

In any case, I don’t believe that PR professionals or media planners would subscribe to this link-based methodology to measure influence (or very much else for that matter).

So I promised a closer look at the top blogs in the UK, ranked by a more suitable metrics: unique users and page impressions.

After the jump, the results...

by Chris Lake 18 October 2006 12:20pm 2 comments

Reuters sells stake in news archive

Reuters has sold its stake in Factiva to its joint venture partner Dow Jones, saying it believes news archives are moving away from subscription-based models to free services on the web.

by Richard Maven 18 October 2006 11:09am 0 comments

Universal sues video sharing sites over copyright infringement

The predicted backlash against the infringement of copyright by video sharing sites has begun, with Universal Music launching legal action in the US against both Grouper.com and Bolt.com.

Universal, whose artists include U2 and Mariah Carey, is seeking compensation of up to $150,000 for each incident of copyright infringement, as well as demanding that the sites cease using their content.

by Graham Charlton 18 October 2006 10:59am 0 comments

Google eats up 25% of US internet ad revenue

Google’s advertising revenue is predicted to rise dramatically this year in the US, outstripping its nearest rival Yahoo by some distance. Google is expected to account for a quarter of US online ad revenue for the first time this year.

The search engine behemoth is projected to take home $4 billion of the expected $16 billion US online advertising market, according to predictions from eMarketer, an online marketing research company.

by Graham Charlton 18 October 2006 10:36am 0 comments